On this date in . . .

1836: Sam Houston was elected president of the Republic of Texas.

1877: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Neb. A year earlier, Crazy Horse had ridden with a group who defeated George Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory.

1914: Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run for Providence in the International League. He also pitched a one-hit shut-out against Toronto.

1935: A new star emerged with release of the Hollywood western "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," the first of 93 feature films starring Gene Autry. He also made 91 TV episodes and wrote hundreds of songs.

1939: The U.S. proclaimed its neutrality in World War II. It would later flip-flop.

1970: Christine McLaughlin was born at exactly 3:30 a.m. in New Bern, North Carolina. Her daughter, Patricia Ann, was born 21 years later, same date, same exact minute.

1987: After 30 years on television, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand was canceled.

1989: The world's longest zipper was completed by the Yoshida company in Sneek, the Netherlands. It was 9,353 feet long and had 2,565,900 teeth.

1990: Linda Mae Walker of Pontiac, Michigan, finally won the custody battle in her divorce settlement and got legal custody of a 14-foot python.

1990: Blues singer/guitarist B.B. King got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1991: Actor John Travolta and actress Kelly Preston were married at midnight at the hotel De Crillon in Paris.

1992: Rocker John Mellencamp and model Elaine Irwin were married in a cabin near Seymour, Indiana, where John grew up.

1996: Research reported in The London Times showed 46% of dogs began watching up to an hour before their owners returned home each day, even when the owners worked irregular hours.

1997: Mother Teresa died of a heart attack in Calcutta, where she established her Missionaries of Charity order. She opened her first Calcutta slum school in 1949. She was 87.

1999: La-Z-Boy introduced its new Oasis recliner in Detroit. Designed for TV football fans, the tilt-back chair was equipped with a telephone, heat, a massager, and a cooler large enough to chill a six-pack.

2002: A Norwegian newspaper reporter sent to cover a car chase was shocked to find a hitch-hiker he picked up was the fugitive police were chasing. When the reporter stopped at a police road-block, the fugitive was arrested.

2003: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in Iraq, said "impressions" of mounting Iraqi violence were being created by negative news media coverage.